The present disclosure relates to subject matter contained in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-163825, filed on May 31, 2000, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a computer readable program product storing a program of a ball-playing type game for controlling a player or ball in a ball-playing type game, such a program, and a ball-playing type game processor and method.
2. Description of the Related Art
At the present time, in sports types games, not only one-against-one contest games, but also group-against-group contest games have been realized such as tennis, soccer, basketball, American football, and baseball.
To play such sports type games, it is necessary to operate control units (control panels, keypads, etc.) provided in advance in an arcade machine or specialized game machine (PlayStation (made by Sony Computer Entertainment), Dreamcast (made by Sega Enterprise), etc.)
The control unit in general includes keys (or buttons) or a joystick. Whether a sports type game or a role-playing game, a control system including a limited number of buttons and number of joysticks on a control unit is incorporated. Of course, a game can also be played on a personal computer. If using a keyboard, keys necessary for control of the game are allocated from the keyboard.
In baseball, soccer, basketball, and other ball-playing type games in sports games, generally the movement of the ball itself cannot be controlled by the buttons or joystick. Instead, the user can control the motion of the player holding the ball or the movement of the player with respect to an incoming ball so as to indirectly control the direction or force of the next movement of the ball.
For example, in a baseball game, when the ball is flying toward a shortstop with no runners on base, the shortstop can be made to catch the ball if in the range of action where the shortstop can catch the ball. When making the shortstop catch the ball, the action of the shortstop catching the ball is displayed on the screen.
Advances in computer graphics have made it possible to smoothly express movement of a ball player in a three-dimensional virtual space. As this type of related art, for example, there is International Publication No. WO98/43715. This publication discloses the art of realizing a catching action by combining several types of motion.
Summarizing the problem to be solved by the invention, in general, in baseball, a glove is used to catch a ball. When reproducing the catching action of the ball player by motion, positional deviation sometimes occurs between the glove of the ball player and the ball at the time of catching the ball. In the art of the above International Publication No. WO98/43715, if the positional deviation between the glove and ball is within an allowable range, the catching action is displayed.
However, if the ball player catches the ball despite a deviation in position of the glove and ball at the time of catching the ball, an unnatural image will result. In particular, if realistically reproducing even the fine movement of the ball players, this unnaturalness of the image due to the positional deviation between the glove and ball at the time of catching the ball stands out.
Therefore, if desiring to reproduce fine movement of the ball player by smooth motion, the smoother the motion, the more the unnaturally expressed portion resulting from the deviation in position between the glove and ball stands out. Therefore, the balance in expression becomes poor and conversely a strange feeling is given to the user.
While the above explanation was given taking as an example a baseball game, the need to make the part of the body of the player or the equipment held by the player accurately match the position of the ball applies to all ball-playing type games involving balls. Examples of such ball-playing type games include soccer, basketball, tennis, American football, and ice hockey.
An object of the present invention is to provide a computer readable program storing a program of a ball-playing type game which, when making a player perform a catching action by motion in the ball-playing type game, enables the part of a player to be brought into contact with a ball and the position of the ball accurately match, such a program, a ball-playing type game processor, and a method of the same.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer readable program product storing a program of a ball-playing type game for realizing a ball-playing type game controlling action of a player catching a moving ball. The program product stores a program for making a computer calculate a trajectory of a ball, predict a point of time on a time axis when a player catches the ball from a group of motion linked with the player in advance and the calculated trajectory, calculate a deviation in positional relationship between a catching pose of the player and the ball on the calculated trajectory before and after the predicted point of time, calculate a correction amount for the catching pose of the player based on the calculated deviation in the positional relationship, and correct the group of motion prepared in advance based on the calculated correction amount in at least part of the time when displaying the player based on the group of motion prepared in advance.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program of a ball-playing type game for realizing a ball-playing type game controlling action of a player catching a moving ball. The program makes a computer calculate a trajectory of a ball, predict a point of time on a time axis when a player catches the ball from a group of motion linked with the player in advance and the calculated trajectory, calculate a deviation in positional relationship between a catching pose of the player and the ball on the calculated trajectory before and after the predicted point of time, calculate a correction amount for the catching pose of the player based on the calculated deviation in the positional relationship, and correct the group of motion prepared in advance based on the calculated correction amount in at least part of the time when displaying the player based on the group of motion prepared in advance.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a ball-playing type game processor including a computer readable program product storing a program of a ball-playing type game for realizing a ball-playing type game controlling action of a player catching a moving ball, a computer for reading and executing at least part of the program from the program product, and a display for displaying the ball-playing type game realized by the program. The computer reads at least part of the program from the program product and thereby calculates a trajectory of a ball, predicts a point of time on a time axis when a player catches the ball from a group of motion linked with the player in advance and the calculated trajectory, calculates a deviation in positional relationship between a catching pose of the player and the ball on the calculated trajectory before. After the predicted point of time, it calculates a correction amount for the catching pose of the player based on the calculated deviation in the positional relationship, and corrects the group of motion prepared in advance based on the calculated correction amount in at least part of the time when displaying the player based on the group of motion prepared in advance.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a ball-playing type game processing method for realizing a ball-playing type game controlling action of a player catching a moving ball. The method includes calculating a trajectory of a ball, predicting a point of time on a time axis when a player catches the ball from a group of motion linked with the player in advance and the calculated trajectory, calculating a deviation in positional relationship between a catching pose of the player and the ball on the calculated trajectory before and after the predicted point of time, calculating a correction amount for the catching pose of the player based on the calculated deviation in the positional relationship, and correcting the group of motion prepared in advance based on the calculated correction amount in at least part of the time when displaying the player based on the group of motion prepared in advance.